US Treasury Secretary Bessent praises Bullard in search for Fed chief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Tuesday he had a good session with former Fed official James Bullard as part of his search for a new Fed chairman.

"Mr. Bullard and I had a very good approximately two-hour session. He has incredible experience from the St. Louis Fed. He is an expert on monetary policy, deep academic background, and knows the institution of the Fed very well," Bessent said in an interview with CNBC.

Bullard, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said Monday he had spoken last week with Bessent about becoming central bank chair when current Chair Jerome Powell finishes his term in May.

Bullard said in an interview with Reuters he would want to defend the reserve currency status of the dollar, keep inflation low and stable and protect the independence of the institution.

Bessent, speaking from London before President Donald Trump's state visit to the UK, said if Trump thought inflation was a problem he would be willing to have interest rate hikes from the Fed. He said he expected to see inflation start to come down in the country.

He said the administration was bringing in money from Trump's new tariffs, saying many exporters were "eating the tariffs."

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama)

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